Ivanka Trump's Punk Phase

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About

Ivanka Trump's Punk Phase refers to a series of jokes, memes and photoshops made in regards to First Daughter and Adviser to the President Ivanka Trump's claims that she went through a "punk phase" as an adolescent. Some online consider her lifestyle, parents, upbringing and style antithetical to the punk ethos and culture, which provide the subtext for the meme.

Origin

On October 17th, 2017, New York Magazine^[1] published a quote from United States President Donald Trump's ex-wife and Ivanka Trump's mother Ivana Trump's memoir Raising Trump. In the book, Ivanka describes going through a brief period as a teenager in which she adopted a grunge aesthetic and appreciation for the band Nirvana, referring to the period as a "punk phase." She says:

"During my punk phase in the nineties, I was really into Nirvana. My wardrobe consisted of ripped corduroy jeans and flannel shirts. One day after school, I dyed my hair blue. Mom wasn’t a fan of this decision. She took one look at me and immediately went out to the nearest drugstore to buy a $10 box of Nice’n Easy. That night, she forced me to dye my hair back to blond. The color she picked out was actually three shades lighter than my natural color… and I have never looked back!"

Spread

Shortly after the article published, the political news site The Hill^[5] tweeted about the article, spreading the claims even further, particlularly Twitter, where people questioned how punk her punk phase really was. Twitter^[2] user and writer Dave Holmes shared the article and commented, "You had- AT MOST- a Sum 41 CD. Within 24 hours, the post (shown below) received more than 7,200 retweets and 44,000 likes.

Throughout the day, more people began making jokes and puns on Twitter. The prevailing jokes were either puns, fitting Trump's name and references to her life into classic punk songs or filtering punk aesthetics through the wealthy Trump lifestyle.

That day, Twitter^[3] user @ChristnNitemare posted a picture of Trump with a sweater around her shoulders and her father Donald Trump with the caption "Ivanka Trump, punk as fuck in Aspen in 1998." The post (shown below) received more than 2,200 retweets and 11,000 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter,^[4] later, published a Moments page, documenting the jokes about Trump's punk claims. Several media outlets published reports on the response to Trump's "punk phase," including the AV Club,^[6] HuffPost,^[7] Harper's Bazaar,^[8] BuzzFeed ^[9] and more.